She has done 2 Olympic games, 2 FIFA World Cups and lots of other big events, and she is still only at the start of her career. Say hello to Canadian and Australian ticketing superstar Brooke Arthur.
From cutting her teeth as an intern at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar, to spearheading ticketing at the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver, and scaling the grand heights of FIFA Women's World Cups, Brooke Arthur's experiences are nothing short of extraordinary.
The charm of her story lies not just in her career's upward trajectory, but in the day-to-day challenges, the critical lessons absorbed, and the adrenaline-charged rewards of a career in ticketing that she candidly shares with us. Brooke's insight into the stark contrasts between the 2015 and 2023 Women's World Cups, coupled with her commitment to knowledge sharing and paying it forward, make for truly absorbing listening. We also get a peek at her impressive career path, a journey marked by hard work, dedication, and a dash of good luck.
In this compelling episode on TicketingPodcast.com, Brooke's passion for ticketing resonates as she reflects on her dynamic career, emphasising the joy of crafting unforgettable experiences for event attendees. Don't miss out on this thrilling ticketing talk!
The interview was recorded on 16 November 2023.
TicketingPodcast.com is powered and sponsored by TicketCo and hosted by TicketCo’s CEO, Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg.
She has done 2 Olympic games, 2 FIFA World Cups and lots of other big events, and she is still only at the start of her career. Say hello to Canadian and Australian ticketing superstar Brooke Arthur.
From cutting her teeth as an intern at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar, to spearheading ticketing at the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver, and scaling the grand heights of FIFA Women's World Cups, Brooke Arthur's experiences are nothing short of extraordinary.
The charm of her story lies not just in her career's upward trajectory, but in the day-to-day challenges, the critical lessons absorbed, and the adrenaline-charged rewards of a career in ticketing that she candidly shares with us. Brooke's insight into the stark contrasts between the 2015 and 2023 Women's World Cups, coupled with her commitment to knowledge sharing and paying it forward, make for truly absorbing listening. We also get a peek at her impressive career path, a journey marked by hard work, dedication, and a dash of good luck.
In this compelling episode on TicketingPodcast.com, Brooke's passion for ticketing resonates as she reflects on her dynamic career, emphasising the joy of crafting unforgettable experiences for event attendees. Don't miss out on this thrilling ticketing talk!
The interview was recorded on 16 November 2023.
TicketingPodcast.com is powered and sponsored by TicketCo and hosted by TicketCo’s CEO, Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg.
We are back with another episode of TicketinkPodcastcom, and today's guest is Canadian and Australian Ticketing superstar, brooke Arthur. She has done two Olympic Games, two FIFA World Cups and lots of other big events around the globe. She is also still only at the start of her career. Tune in for 45 engaging minutes of pure ticketing talk, as always on TicketinkPodcastcom. Hello everyone, thank you so much for tuning in to TicketinkPodcastcom. My name is Karl-Rick Moberg and I'm the host of this podcast. Here we are interviewing the unsung heroes of the event industry, and that is, with no doubt, the Ticketing Managers. With me today is a woman who has done ticketing in Canada, uk, asia and in Australia and New Zealand. She's done two Olympic Games, two FIFA World Cups and also lots of other big events. I mean, you're only at the start of your career and welcome to the TicketingPodcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I'm so excited to be here today and I will apologize. I'll be very Canadian. I'll apologize in the events if I ramble a little too much. I love a good ticketing chat, so no, thank you Really appreciate being on.
Speaker 1:And I think the listeners also like ticketing, so you don't have to worry about that at all. I mean, I've seen quite a few CVs over the years, but I've never seen anything like yours. Who are you and how did you end up here?
Speaker 2:Okay, well, my name is Brooke. I'm Canadian born but now living in Australia. I just recently got my Australian citizenship and I have spent the last 17 years working for various major event ticketing teams. So I have a sport management degree from Brock University. That's back in Canada, and it was through my university is how I got into ticketing in the first place, just as everyone in our ticketing world.
Speaker 2:Sounding like a broken record, you never actually study or plan to get into ticketing. But in the lead up to my fourth year of my sport management degree we had to do a four month internship and I had no idea what I was actually going to apply for. I don't come from a sports background or a big city with lots of sports opportunity. My wonderful dad is a dairy farmer, my lovely mom's a nurse. I mean my first job ever I picked rocks for my dad in the field. Before planting season I was a grocery cashier in our small town grocery store called Staffins. So just no connections into really finding an internship.
Speaker 2:So when this opportunity came up through Brock University, it was for a ticketing intern at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, qatar. This was before Doha was on the map for the World Cup. So the director of ticketing for that event, beverly Clipper, and the ticketing manager, rod Edmiston they're both ticketing legends still to this day, but they needed help in the final four months of the planning and delivery of the games and figured why not give some sport management students an opportunity? And Beverly reached out to the university and I applied and I think it was literally 12 weeks later, after being accepted, that myself and a fellow student and friend, colin, we were on a plane heading off to Doha, qatar, to be ticketing interns. I thought I was just going to be selling tickets from behind a window, because outside of that, that's what you think ticketing is. I was so wrong. It was something so much more than that. But yeah, that's kind of how I fell into ticketing. It was an amazing four months, learned so much that, yeah, that was the beginning of it all.
Speaker 1:Sounds like an adventure. I mean being on that plane right, and after you finished your degree, you spent almost two and a half years as a regional ticketing manager at the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver, a place that I really want to go myself, by the way, to ski, but that's another story for another time. But how is it possible to go directly from a university degree? I mean, obviously, your internship probably played a key role, or tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely the internship. It gave you an inside knowledge into that event world and as soon as I landed back into Canada after that internship, I thought I know exactly what I want to do. So I would say how you do it. It was probably a mix of persistence, risk taking and some good luck. So after my internship went back, finished my degree, I spent a final summer at home in St Mary's and then just packed up my life and moved across the country to Vancouver in August of 2007 to try and get a job at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. So I didn't actually have a job lined up prior to moving, but my mindset was just I thought it would be easier to get hired if I was already in the city. So, yeah, I moved across the country and then just spent my early time in Vancouver actually working as a waitress you know something to pay the bills and just tried to be patient until a ticketing job came up that I could apply for.
Speaker 1:I mean, I was looking at your CV and I couldn't find the waitress job there. What's the reason for that?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, as my career went on, I will admit Waitressing is one title that did fall off the CV after I was fortunate enough to get the career and get a few events under my belt. But, that said, I loved Waitressing and sometimes on those days when you are doing those really really long hours and you know you can't make a ticket holder happy, you're checking the seating bowl for the millionth time and it's 11pm you kind of miss those waitressing jobs where when you leave your shift you're done and nobody needs you until you walk back in. So it was a great opportunity, but yeah, I definitely wouldn't trade what I'm doing now for it. But yeah, it was great when I needed it.
Speaker 1:I can imagine. And also when you're a waitress, you learn a little bit about people as well, right, which is something that comes into hand. I've learned in ticketing.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So, after all this right, you are going into another Olympic and Paralympic. This time you end up in London 2012. And for us, I mean, that's a known event because we've been talking to multiple people who who's been back to that later. But you were ticketing manager at the Olympic Park for two years, from 2010 and up until the games ended in August, september, 2012. How did you end up in London? I mean, how would you compare that to Vancouver?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So after Vancouver 2010 wrapped up, I took the forced unemployment that the end of a contract and event contract brings and decided to do some traveling. One of my sisters at the time was living in New Zealand, and so I went and spent six weeks decompressing post Vancouver 2010, just packed up a backpack New Zealand for six weeks and Australia for four weeks before heading back to Canada and going on the job hunt I mean, I'll say London 2012,. I had luck on my side that they were looking to start hiring, expanding the ticketing team in September of 2010. So I was starting to look in July. So, timing wise, it was pretty good. But to get the job in London, I needed actually my own work visa. So prior to applying for the job, I knew I could get a student work visa being Canadian. So when I did apply, I was able to say to them yeah, no, worries, don't require sponsorship, I'm ready to go. I have the right to work for two years. But I slightly messed up my dates and actually my UK work visa expired one week before the Paralympics actually finished. So in order to still be legal, paul, who you've spoken with before, paul and I came up with the idea that I would be a ticketing volunteer for the Paralympics so I could finish out the event and my contract and just allow me to do that. So I made a quick transition. I still did all the exact same work, just it was a different ticketing title that came with it. Because, yeah, I was out of. I think I flew back to Canada for maybe 72 hours just to switch visas, and that in between Olympics and Paralympics.
Speaker 2:But thinking between Vancouver and London, I did not think that anything could be Vancouver 2010, home country, home Olympics. But London was just. I don't even know if I can actually really put it into words and my family and friends will tell you. I'm not usually speechless, but for London 2012, the only word you can really sum it up with is it was just magic. In terms of comparison, london 2012 was and still is by far the largest event that I've ever had the pleasure of being a part of.
Speaker 2:So Summer Olympics just seems to take over the world. There's something about it that's just. You know everyone gets engrossed in. You know there's a lot more summer sports that obviously majority of the world compete in, and Winter Olympics. They're amazing in their own right, but it's a much smaller capacity. It just doesn't seem to have the same hold. But in terms of a ticketing capacity for what we had to plan, what we had to operate and overall achieve, there really wasn't much difference. It was really just the scale of it. I think Winter Olympics might be between 250, 300 sport sessions in London. I think we were looking at something like 750 or 800, and you know the numbers have escaped me at this point. But it's just that sheer size is probably the biggest difference. But in terms of the way our operations were, there wasn't too much difference. We just had to go bigger, yeah yeah, yeah, I can imagine.
Speaker 1:It's scaling in a different level, I believe. But when you travel like this, you travel all over the world. Ticketing becomes the ticket to traveling the world, doesn't it? But also to meet people. That is like-minded, and I can imagine you had the conversation with Paul. Being a ticketing, you have to be very solution-oriented, so I guess you came up with that solution pretty fast.
Speaker 2:Yes absolutely.
Speaker 1:Do you stay in touch with your colleagues still?
Speaker 2:Yes, I do stay in touch with, definitely the London 2012. Actually, there's just been so many amazing people that I've worked with across a lot of my events that, yeah, I'm still in touch with to this day. I mean, it's not everyday contact, but a lot of these colleagues have become friends after our contracts have ended, so we try to stay in touch. It's one of those fun things. You also try and see where we can work together again on future events, because you just have this trust and built and you just know exactly what somebody's capable of when we've gone through these big events Just this year. So I'm living in Gold Coast, australia at the moment. One of our London 2012 colleagues, charlotte. She moved from London, uk, to Australia and is living in the Gold Coast and we caught up after 10 years and it was just amazing. It felt like no time had actually passed since we saw each other.
Speaker 2:My most recent role with the FIFA Women's World Cup. I was able to work with a gentleman named Florian. He's an incredibly smart and savvy ticketing leader who was on our London 2012 team and he's now based at FIFA full-time and it was just so fabulous to see him again and have that opportunity to work another event together. I just love a good reunion and I just get so excited seeing previous colleagues. It just makes me happy. But to your other part of the question while I know London was so special because of the people we had on our team and that was both our ticketing team and Ticketmaster, our ticket service provider they were exceptional as well. It was just special because of what London and London 2012 had on offer.
Speaker 2:London wasn't your typical London. For the duration of the games, people on the tube wanted to smile and have a chat with you. The sun and the heat came out, which is not your normal British summer at all. I just think for our ticketing team, the hours and the days and the months that we pulled together as a team to sell I think it was over 11 million tickets being back then it was majority paper stock tickets. It wasn't the mobile tickets in the Olympic scene, and even Print at Home PDF were minimal very last minute. On top of that, we had to do dated oyster travel cards. You had to line up who had tickets for which date. The fulfillment of just the travel cards to go with the tickets as well. It was just like a bonding experience. Unlike anything else, we had Paul as our fearless director, and from speaking with him they just don't come any better than Paul.
Speaker 1:It's great you build some exceptional relationship and no wonder you're excited about the reunions. It's fantastic because when you work like that, so ingrained together, on such a massive event which basically turns London upside down, yeah, absolutely, it's one of those.
Speaker 2:Especially the people. I could talk about the people forever. I'm actually still in touch with Beverly and Rod from 2006,. Probably four or five weeks ago now, I caught up in Sydney and it doesn't feel like it's been 17 years since we met in Doha. I've been so lucky. I'm so indebted to them for the help and support and just everything that they've helped me along the way. I can never say thank you. They probably get so annoyed at me. I'm not going to stop. It's one of those. But yeah, the people are just. Yeah, it's just wonderful.
Speaker 1:I think that's one of the key things in ticketing. You meet so many people all over the world. If you say yes to supporting on these big events, you get opportunities, and I think you want opportunities in NOx. You should say yes, because that's when you end up like you have right Meeting all these people and meeting people all over the world. When you meet people that starts in ticketing what do you tell them? Do you mentor them in any way? Do you still, like you're saying, lean on others on the projects? I mean, how do you work with people in general?
Speaker 2:Well, and it's funny because I still think that I am very much a student in this whole ticketing realm and for me to have ticketing knowledge that people want to know it still just takes me by surprise because I still use my network to ask questions and opinions and get their thoughts on and all that and I definitely want to pay it forward because of just how amazing my network has been for me. So I'm very open to sharing information and I take a lot of lessons in how the information was provided to me, because what worked for us in one event may not work in another event. But you can at least have the discussions and there's points that you can take. But I think one of your previous guests and I think it was Martin said it best like sharing is caring, and it is one where I've been able to work with and recently in my last couple of events, lead some really awesome ticketing teams that have some great young ticketing people, and I do know at some point I will get out of the ticketing world at some point.
Speaker 2:So well, I feel like I learned from my staff as well. I would hope those that I've most recently been in touch with would also say that they've learned things from me as well. I do try to pass along what I have felt has helped me get to where I am, but I try not to push things either, because everyone is different and everyone does have different ways to go about things. But I've tried to leave it with all my teams. You know, if they ever do need anything in the future to have a chat or just want to bounce ideas off someone, I mean, who doesn't love a good ticketing chat so I like to think that I've left it as an open book for them to be in touch.
Speaker 1:That's great. Let's move on a little bit. Let's move from the Olympics and discuss a little bit of FIFA, because that's also part of your career and I mean you've done two Olympics not bad and you also have two FIFA women's World Cups that you've done, and I think this is very interesting because of the timelines we're talking about. First, you did FIFA Women's World Cup in Canada in 2015, which probably was a massive experience in itself, but then you also were senior ticketing manager at the Australia and you see women's World Cup in 2023, and that's a big span if you think about what's happening in football. So talk us through that. I mean, the difference is, how was the events? I mean, how has things changed in the world over the years?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, absolutely so I guess, firstly, like for fair comparison sake, fifa as an organization itself has gone through a significant change since 2015. I mean, that's on a streaming platform and not for me to discuss, but now the planning and the operational model for organizing a women's World Cup is completely different than when I was involved in 2015. So, from a specific ticketing perspective, the big difference was back in 2013, which is when I got hired and we had to start planning for 2015. It's as you said women's sport was really just starting to have that increase in awareness and support, but still had a long way to go.
Speaker 2:So the 2015 ticket sales. They came in quite slower. We did have our neighbors to the south, the US. They were popular at that point, so the USA matches were selling well and Canada was going okay, but the Americans were still outperforming us in terms of sale and so even when the tournament in 2015 came along, we still needed that sales push throughout the tournament, whereas 2023, the ticketing was more a mix of managing the quota and the capacity along with pushing sales, and that would be pre-tournament. But once that tournament got started, the remaining tickets sold themselves.
Speaker 2:We more switched into that education and ticket resale mode versus having to push out so many tickets because we just couldn't find enough tickets to. It's such a great problem to have, but it's quite new in women's sport that you can't go up on the day and actually purchase a ticket and you know you're turning people away and you're. It's just a new phenomenon for people and it's a great problem to have. But I think another kind of big comparison was like the location of Australia and New Zealand as compared to Canada. So this presented a kind of different challenge in the strategy aspect of trying to encourage fans to come travel and travel down under and the cost of living at the moment. It is not cheap. You know I would go back to Canada more if it was more cost effective, but it's just not a cheap. So we had to look at creating a ticket strategy that suited that.
Speaker 2:But on top of it, canada was one country. We had two countries we were dealing with in Australia and New Zealand. While they are similar, their economic status is a bit different. So it was just one of those where I think too, with Australia, the Matildas are much more recognized. Women's football is quite big in Australia. It's still up and coming in New Zealand. So you're trying to create a strategy that suits both, because you don't want anyone to be a header behind. So it was definitely a different challenge in comparison to 2015. But you know there's similarities along the way. Canada wasn't small. We had six markets that we had to deal with across five time zones and we had 10 in Australia, new Zealand, and I find those quite fun because I think it's something that you don't always get to do. If you're focused on a particular club, particular team or just an event in one city, you know you focus on the local fans for that, but this one, you had to take into consideration fans from 10 different, very different host cities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean when demand increases, like you're saying. I mean you have to think about the fairness perspective as well, right? Different technologies, different countries, payment methods and whatnot that you have to think about, and also how you cater for these fans when they come.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:When you're doing one club, I mean, that is a job in itself, of course, but when you do tournaments like that, you basically have to zoom out right and see things from completely different perspectives, which makes both an Olympic and working at the World Cup quite interesting, I assume. But you've done so much things, bro. I'm actually going to list up a couple of them and I'm going to ask you a follow up question how is that possible to get there right afterwards? But I mean, you've been a FIFA ticketing consultant in Papua New Guinea, which I'm pronouncing it right, by the way. Maybe not maybe.
Speaker 1:And then you're ticketing events operations manager at Invictus Games Sydney, 2018, ticketing manager that ICCT 2020 World Cup 2020 in Melbourne and Victoria, australia, 2018 to 2020, ticketing leader as a parental leave cover at the South Australian Cricket Association in Adelaide, south Australia, 2020 to 2021. And then ticketing support in hospitality cricket Australia in Melbourne and Victoria, Australia. And then finally ticketing specialist ICCT 2020 World Cup Australia, gold Coast, queensland, in 2021. I could probably ask a question for many hours here, but how do you manage to get all these jobs? How do you get in position for all these amazing opportunities?
Speaker 2:Well, I would hope one of the main reasons that someone who has hired me or worked with me would say is just my passion for ticketing. I absolutely love the work involved in major events ticketing. I really don't have any interest in moving to another functional area. I've built my reputation on being a ticketing nerd, so when it comes to capacities and quotas, the bigger the better for me. I love working with lots of tickets and lots of sports or event sessions within it and I guess, to go along with my passion, I would hope the reputation for my previous work on events, like my work ethic and being a good team member, helped with getting me hired.
Speaker 2:I'm normally a pretty positive and happy person. I like to think that this comes through in interviews and applications and as I've got more experience, I definitely handle my stress and work situations better than at the start of my career. Also, I have just been so fortunate to work with a lot of amazing event professionals, so it's one of those where I always appreciate any former colleagues that have recommended me on events that they've moved on to. I think one of the biggest compliments you can get is when you've been recommended in a future job. Like I know myself. I am very specific about putting names forward because their work and their attitude it can be a reflection on you in that event. So you're really only going to put forward those that you trust 100%. And then there's the boring part that all the job hunters do. I search online, I sign up for the event newsletters to try and stay on top of when these type of events will be hiring their ticketing teams, and you apply through the normal channels. So even if I don't hit all the requirements, I'll still apply. You just never know what'll happen, and the women's roll cup in 2015 is a perfect example.
Speaker 2:It was a big step up after London to go from being the manager to a director and I applied and I remember the day that they called me and I got it. The first thing I did was, I think, I wrote Paul an email because he was sleeping and I called Rod and I said what do we do now? And it was just that sheer excitement and they were so fantastic of calming me down and just chatting through. You know, here's what the next three years of your life are going to look like.
Speaker 2:Type things so, and I guess one, and it's just one, to just not to put it out there, like sometimes it really just has been luck, like I work hard, but there's also luck involved. You know timings, workout, connections and networks. They just end up in roles that can help bring you along and just being in the right place at the right time. Sometimes it just does happen, but to get great roles it's definitely more than luck. But there is an element that I would be lying here if I didn't say you know, sometimes it's been luck that I've been in the right place at the right time.
Speaker 1:And I mean it's quite interesting position to be in. Right, you apply for work all over the world. You don't know where you're going to end up. I mean normal people. I guess you shouldn't say that they sit around and apply for a job in the city they live, maybe somewhere close to where they live so they don't have to travel so far, but you basically jump on the first opportunity on the other side of the world. I mean congratulations, I think that's fantastic. But when you're traveling like this jumping a little bit here in terms of my questions when you meet new people, you work in ticketing, and ticketing can go every way possible Everything can work out perfectly well. Everyone is calm, everything works, but very often that's not the case. Have you ever been uncomfortable in any of these roles? Or when you work like you do, tell us about that.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, all right. Well, so many. I mean, we're all human right Like mistakes happen and things get uncomfortable, but I've been part of ticket on sales that didn't go our way. You know, before social media was what social media is Vancouver 2010 Olympics we had an on sale plan and it just did not happen that day and we had to delay it by a week. You know technology sometimes has a mind of its own Ticket holder information you can read and proof and you know you can go over so much information and stuff still goes out incorrectly and you know you've got to own it and it's never comfortable to do.
Speaker 2:And it's just one where, like standing in front of an angry crowd or an angry ticket holder, I remember I had a Scottish gentleman in Olympic Park for London 2012 screaming at me, and I've just learned that when people are angry, it's just best to let them get it all out before trying to work through a solution. My problem with that one was his accent was so awesome and so thick and just so Scottish I actually had no idea what he was yelling at me about and he was just so angry I could not understand him. So once he had finished screaming, I apologized and I told him truthfully I wanted to help him, but I did not understand a single word that he had just said to me and he just seemed to immediately calm down. I don't know if he just realized there was actually a human standing on the other side of him, because we were face to face and he asked where I was from, because clearly not British, and we ended up actually having a nice conversation and sorting them out. But you know, I love helping out ticket holders, but I'd be lying if I say calling or speaking to them to sort out those kind of issues are a comfortable situation and I think one that just goes kind of on the personal level.
Speaker 2:That we've kind of spoken about too is being unemployed. You know, I do contract work, so things aren't guaranteed. You have contracts, you have a start date and you have an end date. So being unemployed and not knowing where or when your next contract is coming from can definitely be daunting and uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:And then to go along with that, you then end up moving to a new country and a new city and you would think, once you've moved a couple of times, it would get easier, does not? It never gets easier to start life over again and so many times that I've had to move, it's been uncomfortable. But on the other hand, had I not taken those risks of moving and, you know, applying for those jobs, I actually don't know where my life would be. I can't imagine doing anything else. So it's with that uncomfortable that you actually do get comfort. But you've got to go through those periods and the CVs show you the golden highlights. But there's definitely some uncomfortable periods where your contract ends. You know there's still things that got to be paid and, yeah, it definitely can be uncomfortable and tough on yourself and tough on your family and friends around you as well.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I think that's super cool that you're sharing that as well, and the honesty of that, and I think that's the honesty I mean that gets you a long way. Also, with that gentleman, you didn't understand what he was saying. You had an honest answer to him, right.
Speaker 2:Well, I think too, with honesty, you can't get in trouble if you're telling the truth, like, at the end of the day, it may not be what people want to hear, but you can never get in trouble with the truth.
Speaker 1:No, that's the solution. I'm 100% agree with you. But now we're touching a little bit on the why side, right, why do we end up where we are and why do you think ticketing is so fascinating? I mean, you've touched on a lot of things today, but if you would sum it up, the why behind.
Speaker 2:Um, it's a unique area of an organization and I just find that there are no two days or two events that are really ever the same and yet you're working towards the same outcome for each. You're getting people into your event but even though it's the same outcome, it never gets boring. I think with ticketing too, it creates those once in a lifetime memories, like a ticket allows people to experience an event together and remember it for the rest of their lives. Like what other job gets to experience that joy and that happiness front facing and like in that first hand. We always say in the events you know, when somebody purchases a ticket because we go on sale maybe a year out, they know they're coming to that event. That is their first touch point and that's when the excitement really starts building for them and that's when we should be really bringing them on that journey and using that excitement over the year. And you know, from a personal perspective for ticketing, like I'm on numbers and logic type of girl, like I love puzzles, to me Ticketing is just a big puzzle at the end of the day. But when working in ticketing it's black and white, like there's no gray area, a seat exists or a seat does not exist, like there's no, maybe there is a maybe, till you figure it out. And it's just like there's something to do, like with capacities or revenue, like if something's not adding up and not matching, there's a reason. There's no reason why it shouldn't be, whether your Excel formula is wrong, whether you're reporting strong or you've counted wrong, but it's just one of those. And maybe this sounds really sad, but when you figure out that why it's wrong, the sense of accomplishment that comes with that because you may spend half a day trying to figure out why your revenue is not adding up to what it should be there is a reason. And when you find it, oh, that's just good. So I always say I like working with marketing, but I can never work in marketing because I just don't do the gray areas of it.
Speaker 2:And then I guess just one thing that every one of your guests on previous episodes has mentioned is the people. Like the ticketing community is just full of such great and amazing people, like I've already mentioned, paul, rod and Beverly like ticketing legends. I like to joke now that if your name is Tom, chances are you should work in ticketing, because two of the smartest ticketing brains I've ever come across and just have such respect for their names are Tom and like, oh my gosh, just thinking about it, I feel so lucky because I've just worked with such amazing individuals like that are still in this ticketing world as well and just spread around. Like Christina was my right hand girl in 2015. She's in Toronto, you know, just an absolute legend in herself.
Speaker 2:I've got Josh worked with me in Gold Coast and Brett and Catter in Australia and we did Cricket and kudos to the cricket team because Canadian accent cricket is not in my background. I think a few customer service calls thought I was scamming them when I called them about their cricket tickets because of my accent and we ended up having a whole discussion about how I was learning to read the scoreboard of cricket. And just my most recent team as well with the LOC. Like when you are in the thick of a good ticketing project for an event, just working with the best people, like I just don't know where else I would want to spend my working hours ticketing. To me it's just happiness. Like I absolutely adore working in it.
Speaker 1:Sounds great and I guess when you talk about Tom, producer of ticketing podcast is named Tom. I mean, that's not a coincidence.
Speaker 2:We got three toms to it if you'd like.
Speaker 1:So let's say you've been planning. I mean, you're planning for weeks, months and maybe even years. At the day of the event, which is a tradition here in the ticketing podcast, I mean, what are your? We call them matchday rituals, but this is not really match day in that case event day rituals.
Speaker 2:I guess it's a funny one because I don't have that many match days when it comes to kind of the ticketing that I do or that I've been fortunate to be a part of. So it's one of those where you only get event days, kind of once every two or three years. So I probably don't have any real match day rituals. But I do have two things that I try to do in every job and every event that I go to, and one is I try to have as much of an empty inbox as I possibly can. My inbox is my to-do list, so it's one where I just sleep better at night if I know it's organized and you know I have answered and I just don't like the feeling of people waiting on information from me. So having a very empty inbox which I've seen some of my fellow ticketing's inboxes and it would drive me insane. So I keep mine as clean as I possibly can and I think another one and it kind of does roll through even in the lead up. But on match days is I like to be one of the first ticketing people on site. I just find it calms me, it grounds me, it gives me an opportunity to kind of get anything I need to get done before. That chaos kind of takes over because you know you'll go in with a to-do list or a plan on a match day and you can land in there and that just goes out the window. So if I go in before I still have time to do kind of those critical items on my list. Before you know you might get taken sideways, but I just feel like I'm off on the right foot if I'm one of the first in it. Just yeah, it just calms me for the day.
Speaker 1:Sounds good. And then, moving on to the key takeaways, which is also a tradition we do here at the Ticketing podcast and, if you want our listeners to remember, I mean from this very interesting conversation, which I've learned a lot. Thank you so much, brooke, thank you all for those key takeaways. B.
Speaker 2:Well, I have a few things that I've just found that I probably have been repeating over the years and my career, and you know from listening to your other episodes they are similar to what your other guests have said. But one of my first ones is I will never ask my staff to do anything or any task that I wouldn't do myself. So never thinking a job is below you, like no matter what level you reach, like counting seats it's not glamorous, but everyone just needs to pitch in and help out. So I still do tasks and jobs that I was doing in Vancouver 2010 when I got my career started. So I will never ask anyone on my team to do something that I wouldn't make myself do. So I think that's my first takeaway. My second takeaway is just be kind and be helpful. This applies to both work colleagues and your fans, your ticket holders. I can't remember exactly which previous episode, so I do apologize if I get the people wrong, but I think it might have been Peter or Amir, but they said it perfectly that if you stop wanting to help, it might be time to get out of ticketing. Nothing frustrates me more than unhelpful colleagues, bad customer service, being rude or just treating ticket holders like they don't matter, like they do matter and I mean everyone has their bad days. But at the same time, if you just find yourself no longer wanting the best for your fans or making decisions in the best interests of your ticket holders, it just may be time to reevaluate your work choice. And on the other side too, ticket purchasers and ticket holders need to remember it is humans on the other side of the computer and it feels like since COVID, there's just been that craving to get back to live events and live sports and people are forgetting that venues have a set total capacity and you can't oversell that total capacity. You know Taylor Swift is a perfect example. Like people are going to miss out on tickets, and I just find that I know myself if someone is treating me with respect, it's just easier to help them and to want to find a solution, whereas if somebody's being rude, you know it's just one of those where the guard goes up and you just find it really hard to go above and beyond. But if you just are thinking yourself, I don't care what happens to the fans, please don't work in ticketing, we just find something else to do. And I think my third one, and it's one that's gotten me through, like the tough times and what we do.
Speaker 2:I believe what we do with events is important and it can bring a lot of happiness to someone's day, but at the end of it we sell tickets. We're not saving lives. Ticketing is not life or death. Perspective is important, and so while major events bring on a lot of tension and ticketing can get a lot of heat, at the end of the day we are all humans and mistakes can happen, but it's just tickets, not lives. So I think keeping this perspective as well, you know it is important, but at the end of the day it's all about perspective. So I have said to a few angry people that love to yell at me that I've ruined their life, I will go back with a cheeky. I accept I've ruined your day, but if I've ruined your life, you've probably had a pretty good life and they don't like it, but it is one where I think it's just perspective. So I think those are my kind of three takeaways.
Speaker 1:Sounds great. I 100% agree with you. And, to sum it up again, I mean you mentioned COVID, you mentioned people wanting to come back. I actually think that the heroes of ticketing make the world a better place because they enable people to meet at these amazing events instead of sitting at home, which we've all seen the results of right. So, yeah, I think we are doing a good job and you are doing an amazing job and you really care about this and that's fantastic to Hervrook. So thank you Really good summary. You mentioned paid forward. If people would like to reach out to you to network or get advice or maybe us what jobs they should apply for, what do they do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so just similar to the other guesses. Probably easiest is LinkedIn. I'm on there, Just send me a message, send me a connection and happy to chat through that and we'll just take it from there.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Thank you so much, brook. It's been a pleasure and a privilege to have you as our guests. You've been listening to ticketingpodcastcom, where today's guest has been Brook Arthur, currently in between jobs, but that won't last for long, I feel that coming so, she's a ticketing superstar for sure, and I can't wait to follow you, brook, and to see where you pop up next time, and maybe there'll be another season where you'll share more adventures, and I hope there will be. So. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to our sponsor, ticketco, for powering the ticketingpodcastcom. My name is Kallarik Moberg and until next time, have a great day.